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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Facebook reportedly close to launching new ad platform in bid to take on Google

It looks as if Facebook is about to reveal exactly what it’s made of the Atlas Advertising Suite, which it bought from Microsoft last year.

The ad manager and measuring tool will launch imminently as an advertising platform for the social networking giant as part of its strategy to boost revenue and take on Google in the online ad space, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Designed to help marketers improve the way they manage and target their campaigns, the tool offers analytical information on which Facebook users are looking at which ads. It also reveals how users interact with those ads, and whether they’re persuaded to take such interaction further by, for example, making a purchase or clicking through to another site.

The platform will also include an automatic ad-buying tool that can target Facebook members across the Web.

“Atlas’s powerful platform….will help advertisers close the loop and compare their Facebook campaigns to the rest of their ad spend across the web on desktop and mobile,” Brian Boland, Facebook’s director of product marketing, said when the acquisition was announced in 2013.

Google

According to the Journal, which received information for its report from “people familiar with the company’s plans,” Facebook’s new platform is part of its effort to compete with Google in the hugely lucrative online ad market.

Facebook has been steadily building its ad-based revenue in recent years, but is still way behind Google – the social media service pulled in $2.68 billion in the most recent quarter, while Google’s ad revenue hit $14.36 billion for the same three-month period.

Facebook hopes that by offering marketers improved targeting opportunities, as well as more accurate data on the progress of an ad campaign, it will be in a position to close the gap on the Mountain View company.